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Spiritual Account Management
Spiritual Account Management
Once a month I go to the bank to withdraw cash. The way that works is I must first have money in the account or they will they just give me a funny look. I am used to getting funny looks mind you, but this is a different kind of funny look. It says, “I’m sorry you don’t have near as much money as you thought you did.” Thankfully I keep track of my account and that doesn’t happen to me (anymore). That is how money management and banking transactions work (for more information see your banker).
What about a similar concept for your spiritual account? You see things in the news that shake your faith. A bomb blew up killing a bus load of children, or some horrible hurricane wreaked havoc on the gulf, slaughtering thousands, or turmoil on the world stage. You see things done by man, and you see things done by nature. When things like that happen, you can find yourself needing to make a spiritual withdrawal; your faith has taken a hit, not because God isn’t there, but because your trust in Him is shaken. If you have not been monitoring the account, keeping up with the transactions and so forth, you will probably find yourself getting the “funny look”.
You need the help, the security, the comfort, but it’s not there because you have not kept up with the account. In your daily life you must work for your income so the checks can be deposited. In the spiritual you must work on your faith so that the “check” gets direct deposited into your personal account. You cannot depend on someone else’s account for comfort or assurance. It is your account! You can’t even rely on a shared account with your spouse to keep you afloat.
You have to work at your faith so that the account won’t overdraft and leave you homeless and helpless. Keep the account up to date so that when tragedy strikes you have plenty of emergency savings to get you through the hard times. Only a fool says “hard times, smard times”; you will have hard times like we all do. Do you have rough months financially? Maybe not in a long time; have you ever had hard times financially? Then understand this: you will have hard times spiritually! How’s your faith going to handle a tragic story of thousands dying in some far-off place, or the Ukraine situation, or how about something more personal? A young friend or even brother/sister in Christ dies in a very sad way in the prime of their life. How’s your account doing?
Build up that account so that you have the reserves prepared for hardship. How do we do that? “So then, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the WORD OF GOD” (Romans 10:17).
We get faith after we have listened consistently to the word God has given to us. Our faith grows by studying God’s word, by listening to it preached, listening to it taught, by stepping up and teaching it ourselves, by integrating it into every area of our lives. We rise early in the morning to look at it before work. Or start cutting our lunch break back a little, to leave more time for a quick read. We get involved with our annual daily bible reading. Each and every time we invest ourselves in God’s word, we are taking little checks and cashing them in our spiritual checking account.
We have a project we all work on together. We come in to the assembly so we can work together, building each other up, helping to strengthen each other’s faith. We are helping one another build our accounts up. “Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:24-25).
We consider one another so that we can help build and strengthen each other up. We help build up our accounts. When the account is built up we can take the hit and keep going. When it is not we take the hit and stop dead in our tracks and spend a long time trying to get back on our feet—or we end up wallowing in our sorrows and never recover. It is true physically, and just as true spiritually, we have to save for a rainy day. The day you find out your car’s transmission hates you and wants to leave you in the middle of a four lane, you are either destroyed financially or just unsettled. It all depends upon how intentional you have been with your savings. The day you find out your child or a best friend or brother in Christ not only has been having doubts, but is on their way out the door and won’t be back, you are either unhinged spiritually or slightly unsettled. There is a big difference between spiritual devastation and spiritual disruption.
The Hebrew writer gives us the remedy for such discouragement in the verses cited earlier: constant consideration of one another and consistent assembling. This time together is of the utmost importance. Nothing should get between me and my time with brethren. We don’t let family, job, fun, or even school get between us and that time! We will be there to build up that account of faith. To make those deposits of faith and trust and hope so that when the inevitable day comes, we are prepared. When we have to take a hit spiritually, we can handle it! Prepared to fight through this garbage and keep our eyes fixed on the eternal retirement. We must do everything in our power to show our families and children what good “money” management looks like. By that I hope you understand I mean spiritual account management. Invest the time, the energy, and the effort, only then can you have something upon which to depend.
Don’t work lazily at your faith and then be surprised when you don’t have any for a rainy day!
